Importance of higher education

EDITORIAL

Two recent books on higher education, “Academically Adrift” by Richard Arum and Josipa Roska and “Higher Education?” by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus cast needed light on university education.

“Academically Adrift” is based on hard social science, while “Higher Education?” is more anecdotal, but both come to the same conclusions: American higher education produces bad results and is overpriced. It is a scandal of the highest order that American families are asked to pay ever-increasing fees for a system that does a very poor job of educating its students.

As “Academically Adrift” suggests, students are required to read less, write less and study less than in the past by significant levels and thus learn less. Hacker and Dreifus argue that universities increasingly push faculty into research at the cost of ignoring their teaching responsibilities. Meanwhile, actual instruction is farmed out to graduate students and adjuncts.

Students themselves share at least some of the blame. Both books note that students now demand single rooms, private bathrooms, first-class entertainment and exercise facilities and a bevy of food choices, all of which would have seemed like luxuries to earlier generations. Students often fail to realize that these perks play a part in the large tuition increases of the last generation. Students seek more to be entertained than educated while at college.

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Hacker and Dreifus also point out, as many recent studies have, that over the past 20 years, the ranks of college administrators have soared, far outpacing the increase both in faculty and student enrollment. Students and parents are paying large sums for people who have little to nothing to do with actual education.

These books are not just lists of complaints; they also offer solutions. Both books give ammunition to those who wish for a greater emphasis on traditional liberal education over the vocational education that has come to dominate colleges. “Academically Adrift” notes that in their study it was the students with majors in the humanities and social sciences that gained the most in crucial categories of learning. By anecdote, “Higher Education?” illustrates the vapidity of much of what constitutes professional training at colleges.

Hacker and Dreifus give specific recommendations for better learning, namely greatly reducing the use of mobile technology and PowerPoint in the classroom and a crackdown on cheating.

The good news for South Dakota, especially for Northern State University, is that the quality that these scholars do see in higher education is typified by our schools.

The best schools have small class sizes and emphasize student/faculty interaction. These schools have faculty who put more emphasis on teaching than on research and usually work for lower pay. The schools are especially strong in the liberal arts. As Hacker and Dreifus put it, these schools help turn students into interesting people.

South Dakota can be proud of its public universities. It should strive to improve on what is working and avoid aping more popular but far less educationally sound institutions.

Jon D. Schaff is professor of political science at Northern State University in Aberdeen.

The views are his and do not represent those of Northern State University.